Carpet manufacturers currently dispose of industrial carpet remnants as waste at landfills. Carpet distributors and carpet installation contractors typically also dispose of used post-consumer carpet as waste at landfills. Hence, the amount of waste being deposited in landfills may be voluminous and can create a strain on the landfill resources presently available. Additionally, landfills in general are not aesthetically pleasing or environmentally beneficial. The carpet waste may be manually recycled by hand by segregating the waste to reclaim any recyclable pieces, but the amount of carpet reclaimed may be limited and only a minimal percentage of the total waste carpet may be useful. Accordingly, there is a need for efficient recycling of carpet waste to reduce the amount of waste being disposed of at landfills.
Additionally, carpet manufacturers use steam, electricity or other energy sources in their manufacturing processes. Energy may be purchased directly (electricity, for example) or produced from a number of processes and energy sources, such as coal or natural gas (steam, for example). However, conventional energy production processes may be relatively inefficient and/or environmentally unfriendly.